Why do the rats go after my 2 month account every time?

[Tom_Drakka]

for a week now I have seen the rats always go for the lowest skill account. i have been mining with 10 other miners and the rats always go for my 2 month account. ???

[Gerard_Amatin]

They may be nearest, slowest, easiest to kill or just have a name the rats very much dislike.

I recall a time I was killing rats in a large (~15 man) group as logi pilot and for some reason the rats in each site would always focus the same person first, even though he was not flying anything special.

Rat aggro seems random, but not truly everyone-equal random.

[Yla_Trild]

I noticed this recently mining on one of my lower level characters. In a venture with a bunch of bigger ships, the rats would consistently go after me every time, even if they spawned closer to others. Figured it was something like the “aggro magnet” mechanic of other games. Came across a post saying rats always target the lowest EHP ship first. Come to think of it, such predictable behavior could be taken advantage of to pull rats away (though they do still switch targets).

Edit: I can’t find the post now, but did find a dev blog suggesting ship size/signature radius might be the deciding factor.